


Finn: The Beginning

by wheel_pen



Series: Finn [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Clones, Finn (wheel_pen), Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 12:16:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4478918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft reveals a small boy he’s discovered being raised in a laboratory by persons unknown… a boy who is a clone of Sherlock. John and Sherlock take him home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finn: The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> The bad words are censored. That’s just how I do things.
> 
> This story has not been Britpicked. Please let me know if I get anything horribly wrong.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this AU. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe.

Mycroft had been maddeningly vague as usual about why he wanted to see them. However, he hadn’t sent any oversized flunkies to intimidate them into coming, only a car and a text message. The minimalism had intrigued Sherlock, though—as he griped to John on the way over—it was probably nothing of consequence. Because Mycroft’s concerns were usually trivial things, John thought to himself, sarcastically. He didn’t bother to say it, though, because Sherlock was busy formulating testable theories on the reason for the summoning, based on recent events in the paper.

“So if his tie is red, it’ll be about the student suicide in Bothingford, which wasn’t a suicide at all but rather a murder, by the way,” Sherlock hypothesized. “I realized _that_ as soon as I read about the cat found at the scene. On the other hand, if he has mud in the treads of his shoes, it’ll be about that meat shop robbery in Kensington, which isn’t really a meat shop, more likely a front for the Russian mob. The _bicycle_ , John, that’s perfectly obvious, they ought to have realized that would give them away.”

“The press is just entirely full of lies, isn’t it?” John remarked dryly.

“I always attributed it to ignorance,” Sherlock declared. “Though some is deliberate obfuscation from the authorities, of course.”

“And what if he’s wearing a red tie, _and_ has mud on his shoes?” John asked tolerantly.

“Don’t be foolish, John,” Sherlock huffed. “That combination makes no sense!”

“Right, because the rest of it made so much sense. Oh, look, we’re here,” John pointed out just in time, before Sherlock could rattle off why the tie color and the mud were perfectly logical deductions. Normally he did find Sherlock showing off charming, and amazing—in private anyway, with other people it could get a bit mean-spirited—but after two days of listening to him whine about not having a case it got a bit tiresome.

And the only thing more tiresome than _one_ Holmes showing off, was _two_. So John’s day was shaping up to be _delightful_ so far.

They exited the car and strode into the building, bypassing security and marching straight through the high-ceilinged hallways, columns rising pretentiously around them and mythological figures glaring down from the frescoes above. John always felt very small and out of place here, and he expected that was exactly what the architect had in mind. Sherlock of course swaggered along like a prince born to inhabit these rooms.

They were passed along through several different people and offices and finally faced the doors of Mycroft’s private study—“the holy of holies,” Sherlock muttered in John’s ear, making him snort in an undignified way, then turn pink when the secretary glared at him. The doors opened and they were ushered in, any mirth dying when they saw Mycroft leaning against his desk, looking unusually grave. He was _always_ serious, of course, but this time he didn’t even have the disdain that usually accompanied meetings with his younger brother. And he was not wearing a red tie. The doors clicked shut behind them.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” he began perfunctorily. “Three days ago—“

“How about a drink?” Sherlock interrupted.

Mycroft blinked at him, then rolled his eyes. “I’ve not had time to go to Kensington,” he said, the familiar disdain suddenly back. “Do you want to see the bottom of my shoes anyway?”

Now Sherlock rolled _his_ eyes, impatient to get on with the meeting—since it hadn’t been about either of _his_ two theories, obviously it wasn’t anything interesting. “No need. Carry on. I’ve got several urgent cases to get back to.”

Mycroft didn’t need to glance at John’s expression to realize that was a lie, but he went on anyway. “Three days ago, agents from MI5 raided a secret laboratory in Kinnock, Derbyshire. The evidence suggested biological weapons.”

“In _Derbyshire_?” John repeated, alarm mixing with disbelief.

Sherlock had Googled the location the moment it was mentioned. “Nothing in the press, very neat,” he commented, continuing to zoom around a map of the area.

“We didn’t find any biological weapons,” Mycroft added, more to John, “at least not yet. It seemed to be more of a… training facility.”

John’s stomach went cold and even Sherlock glanced up from his phone as his brother said those words. “Training for what?”

“Training and experimentation on humans, or _one_ human, anyway, the one we found there,” Mycroft continued, adding in a lighter tone, “Led the agents on a merry chase, I’m told, and nearly got away clean.”

“Some kind of super-soldier?” John guessed. Just _one_ didn’t sound so bad—well, _bad_ , of course, but not zombie apocalypse bad.

“Not exactly,” Mycroft evaded. “At least, we don’t think so at this point, but he’s still being evaluated. His DNA test had an interesting result, at which point _I_ became involved.”

“Please, G-d, let it be a merman,” Sherlock begged irreverently, his way of telling Mycroft to speed it up already.

Mycroft’s expression said Sherlock shouldn’t be so eager to find out more and he reached back to press a buzzer on his desk. “What’s wrong with his DNA?” John asked, not wanting to try and interpret the patented Holmes gaze.

“Oh, nothing’s _wrong_ with it,” Mycroft sighed as another door opened. “Just a little too familiar.”

Anthea walked in, but John barely even glanced at the beautiful young woman—he was transfixed by the child whose hand she held. He was small, maybe five years old, and thin, with pale skin, dark curly hair, and penetrating blue eyes—

“Oh my G-d,” John finally said into the silence. He tore his gaze from the boy to glance at Sherlock, who wore a no-doubt similar expression, something akin to being hit in the face with a board. He looked back to the boy, who merely blinked with little interest in them, then at Mycroft. “Wha—I mean, how—“ Well, the initial _how_ was obvious, he supposed, since Sherlock claimed when teased that he wasn’t a virgin; but how did his son end up at a _laboratory_?

The boy turned to gaze up at Anthea. “You _said_ there’d be biscuits,” he reminded her in an imperious tone.

“Well there aren’t any right now,” she told him sharply. Obviously this was not her area of expertise. “You can have one later.”

“I want a biscuit,” the boy insisted, twisting his hand out of hers angrily. “I WANT A BISCUIT!!”

The adults all jumped at his sudden increase in volume. Mycroft sighed; clearly he was not unused to this behavior. “Anthea, some tea, please?” he suggested, and she hurried out the main door.

This left the boy standing alone, staring at the three men who were staring back at him. For a moment he looked apprehensive; then he threw his head back and squared his shoulders with a look of contempt for lesser beings that John knew all too well. John started to grin and quickly covered it with his hand.

Not quickly enough, though. “It’s not funny,” Sherlock snapped, turning his discomfort on John.

“No, no, not funny,” John tried to explain, looking from one set of accusatory blue eyes to another. “It’s just—he’s like a little you! It’s adorable.” Not a word he often associated with Sherlock, really.

“Very apt description, Doctor,” Mycroft remarked.

“It’s not adorable,” Sherlock insisted, something akin to horror in his tone. Trust Sherlock to embrace macabre murder scenes, but find a small child disturbing.

“I _mean_ , he _is_ a ‘little you,’” Mycroft corrected, and both John and Sherlock stared at him. “He’s your clone. One-hundred-percent DNA match.”

They all started talking at once. “Human cloning has never progressed—“

“Certainly not anything the public would know about—“

“Six years ago, where were you—“

“Trained to do _what_ —“

“You said experimentation—“

“I WANT A BISCUIT!!” the boy repeated, even louder, cutting them all off. “I want a biscuit, I want a biscuit, I want a biscuit—“ He started jumping up and down, his face turning red with fury.

“That’s you, alright,” Mycroft said dryly. “You were a horrible child, but apparently it was genetic.”

“I wasn’t—“ Sherlock started to protest.

“I’m not horrible!” the boy said suddenly, glaring at Mycroft. There was a bit of doubt in his tone, though, and he started to cry. “I’m not horrible!”

John glanced at the Holmes brothers, who were staring at the boy like he was a bug under a microscope. “Does he always just repeat things?” Sherlock asked, with some disappointment.

Obviously neither of them was going to do anything to comfort the boy, so John went over and knelt down in front of him. “Hey, hey, it’s okay, calm down,” he told the boy in a soothing tone, rubbing his thin arms. The jumper he was wearing was a bit too large for him, making him seem even smaller. “That’s it, calm down, you’re okay, aren’t you?” The boy’s tears reduced to sniffles, and John glanced away to see Sherlock and Mycroft arguing with each other in hushed tones. He didn’t think they would be much help here. “Hey, what’s your name, huh? Can you tell me your name?”

The boy wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Of course,” he said, as though meeting a challenge. “It’s Fif.”

John blinked. “Sorry, what?”

“Fif,” the boy repeated. “Did you not hear me properly?”

“I think I didn’t,” John agreed, trying to be serious. “Can you spell it for me?”

“Of course I can,” the boy insisted. There was a pause. “I can spell it on _paper_ ,” he added, conceding nothing.

John looked around quickly and grabbed a yellow legal pad and a pen off Mycroft’s desk. “Here you go. You can write your name on here.”

“Alright.” The boy dropped to the floor with the flexibility of youth, lying on his stomach as he regarded the pad. John tried sitting on the floor, then stretched out on his side next to him, head propped on his fist. “These spaces are rather small,” the boy warned of the lines on the paper.

“It’s okay, you can use two of them,” John allowed.

“I don’t have to,” the boy claimed, “but I will since you asked.”

“Thank you,” John told him, trying not to laugh. Gripping the pen awkwardly the boy began to print his name on the paper, frowning with concentration. John watched his face, marveling at the similarity to Sherlock—same high cheekbones, same long lashes, nose a bit more snub perhaps. Incredible, really, to see Sherlock as a child, in the flesh—more or less. John was a doctor, after all, and knew that unlike the sci-fi movies claimed, real clones were not entirely identical to the originals; the environment one was raised in counted for a lot, even in appearance. Which brought up the question of how, exactly, this boy had spent the last five years.

“There,” the boy said with satisfaction, sliding the pad over to John.

“Oh, _Fif_ ,” he read in surprise.

“That’s what I said.”

“Yes,” John agreed. It just hadn’t made any sense. Still didn’t, really. “My name is John. Do you want me to write that down?” He did so, carefully.

“You stay in the lines well,” Fif observed, with a tinge of envy.

“Well, I’ve had a long time to practice.”

Fif pointed at the first letter of his name. “That’s a _jay_ ,” he informed John.

“Yes, it is, that’s very good,” John praised him.

“I know _all_ the letters, especially the ones at the beginning,” Fif boasted.

“Yeah, that’s good, do you know the next one, then?” John asked. “It’s not from the beginning.”

“That’s an _oh_ ,” Fif identified. “That’s easy, it’s a special one that can make a noise on its own.”

“Very true,” John agreed. “And what’s this?”

“That’s an _aych_ ,” Fif replied. “And that one is…” He stared at the last letter with a frown, and John wondered how long he should wait before intervening. “Oh, I think it’s an _enn_ , which has only one hump, and an _emm_ has two.”

“Very good,” John told him, and the boy seemed pleased. When he smiled there were dimples—John didn’t think Sherlock had dimples, but on the other hand maybe he just didn’t smile enough. “Who taught you the letters, then?” he probed casually.

“I taught myself,” Finn claimed. “From books and the telly.”

“Really?” John didn’t mean to let his skepticism show but the boy must have heard something in his voice, because his smile vanished and he lifted his nose a trifle. It was the same expression Sherlock had when he was about to unleash the logic behind a deduction.

“It was clear the letters _meant_ something,” Fif insisted. “It only took a little time to figure out what.”

“Alright, that’s good,” John assured him. “You’re very clever.”

Far from being happy at this additional praise the boy seemed to withdraw a bit, sitting up and folding his knees under his chin. “Are you going to give me more tests?” he wanted to know.

“Oh, this wasn’t a test,” John tried to tell him quickly. “This was just, um, sharing. I’m not here to test you. Do you take a lot of tests?”

“Yes, all the time,” Fif claimed. “About letters and numbers and maps and shapes, and putting puzzles together and taking things apart.”

“Who gives you these tests?”

Fif shrugged. “They’re just there, and I’m supposed to take them, and then I can play. But I can’t play until I take the test. Can I play now?” he asked hopefully.

“Um, I’m not sure there’s much here to play with,” John hedged. “You can play with the pen and paper.” Fif gave him a look reminiscent of Sherlock’s when John forbade him from doing an experiment with body parts on the kitchen table, and grudgingly took the pen back to doodle on the paper. “There must be people, right?” John suggested, trying to make his point without being too interrogatory. “People who bring you food, and put you to bed, and make sure you wash up—“

“I can do that on my own, I’m not a _baby_ ,” the boy insisted with a sneer. “And the food’s just _there_ , in the box on the wall.”

“You—never saw another person?” John could hardly believe a five-year-old could cope on his own, even if he was apparently being monitored from outside. Or maybe he didn’t _want_ to believe it, because it sounded horrible.

“Of course I saw other people,” Fif contradicted. “On the telly. And animals and cars and monsters and Muppets. I like Muppets,” he added thoughtfully.

“Muppets are nice,” John agreed. “But you never saw anyone—for real, in person? Like you and I are talking?”

Fif sensed he was not able to give John the answer he wanted, and this frustrated him. He scribbled viciously on the paper. “Sometimes there was a voice that read things to me,” he tried, “but then I told them I could read the letters and I didn’t need the stupid voice, so it went away.” He sounded as if perhaps he regretted this decision. “And now there’s lots of people asking lots of questions.” The top sheet of the pad tore under the force of the pen he wielded.

“You don’t like that much, huh?” John surmised sympathetically, imagining all the examinations and interviews Mycroft’s people had managed to cram into three days.

Fif shook his head, unruly curls bouncing, and shoved the pen and paper aside forcefully. Before John could say anything to him the door opened, admitting Anthea with the tea trolley, and the boy perked up. “I want a biscuit,” he demanded, jumping to his feet. He seemed intent on rushing the trolley, or possibly the still-open door, and John grabbed hold of him before he could dart away.

“Hang on—“

“I want a biscuit, I want a biscuit, I WANT A BISCUIT—“

“He must be defective,” Sherlock commented, as Mycroft rolled his eyes.

“Hey!” John said sharply, mostly to Fif but also partly to Sherlock, neither of whom got it. “Now is that any way to behave?”

“Yes,” Fif replied blankly. “Usually I get a biscuit next.”

John sighed. “Well from now on you’re not going to get a biscuit unless you ask for it nicely,” he told him firmly. “And even then you might not get one, because it’s not good to eat biscuits all the time.”

Fif scowled at him in a very Sherlockian way, slightly exaggerated on his small face. “Is that a new _rule_?” he asked.

“Yes, it’s a new rule,” John agreed, since he seemed to be familiar with the concept. “You know what rules are?”

“Yes,” Fif sighed heavily. “I mustn’t break things or throw things or mix things or climb on things. It’s tiresome.”

John looked up in time to see Sherlock shrugging as though the boy had a point, which was not helping. “Yes, well, _rules_ help to keep you safe, and they help you to be pleasant, so other people like being around you.” He stood and led the boy by the hand over to the tea trolley.

“Oh. Is that why no one wanted to be around me before?” Fif asked in a troubled tone. “Is that what _defective_ means?”

John shot Sherlock a glare and received merely a wide-eyed look of innocence in return. “You just forget about that part,” he advised the boy. “Now can you ask Anthea politely for a biscuit? Can you say ‘please’?”

“Please, may I have a biscuit?” Fif asked charmingly and John grinned. “That’s what Lowly Worm says.”

“A fine example,” John agreed, prompting Anthea with a look to hand over the biscuit. Finally she put one on a plate and handed it to the boy with a half-hearted smile.

“Thank you,” Fif told her. He set the plate on the floor and began gnawing on the biscuit, dropping crumbs everywhere. John decided he could only handle so many lessons at a time. “Lowly Worm says ‘you’re welcome’ when someone says ‘thank you,’” Fif informed Anthea pointedly.

“Well good for Lowly Worm,” she replied flatly. John cleared his throat. “You’re welcome,” she added, and Fif nodded. Then he bounced away to explore the room.

John tried to keep an eye on him while turning back to Sherlock and Mycroft. “So, is he healthy?” he asked professionally. “If he hasn’t been around people much his immune system might not be very strong.”

Sherlock blinked at him. “What are you talking about?”

Mycroft also blinked at him. “How did you know he hadn’t had much contact with people?”

“Well—he told me,” John explained, wondering if he’d gotten it wrong. “He said things like food and puzzles were just left for him, and he only heard voices reading to him sometimes. No other people. I mean, there must’ve been people at _some_ point, when he was younger—“ He broke off, looking at Mycroft’s expression.

“It took us quite a long time to extract that information from him,” he finally said, refusing to be impressed.

“John relates well to irrational minds,” Sherlock noted, possibly meaning that as a compliment.

John’s temper flared, though. “Perhaps you shouldn’t have tried to _extract_ it from him,” he told Mycroft tightly. “He’s not a terrorist you’ve got in custody.”

“Well _that_ remains to be seen,” Mycroft replied darkly. “Anyway, he seems perfectly healthy. Physically, anyway.” Mentally or emotionally was another story, his tone said.

This reminded John to turn on Sherlock. “And _you_ , stop calling him ‘defective,’” he hissed, making sure the boy wasn’t listening.

“Well, he _was_ making quite a noise,” Sherlock pointed out.

“He’s five, and he’s scared, and he’s never been around people before,” John was forced to remind him.

“He doesn’t seem scared to me,” Sherlock countered, nodding over John’s shoulder. He turned to see the boy scaling one of the floor-to-ceiling bookcases. “Quite good form, really.”

“Anthea,” Mycroft chastised.

“You come down here right now,” she tried, pointing at the floor as if he was a dog. “Right now!”

What a shock, this didn’t work. He was not too high up for John to simply pluck him off and set him on his feet. “I thought ‘no climbing’ was a rule?” he reminded the boy.

Fif scowled deeply. “I don’t like it here!” he declared. “It’s boring and there’s no toys and all these books are _dull_!” He started yanking the books angrily off the shelf.

“Hey! That’s enough.” John picked him up when he didn’t stop, intending to move him away from the bookcase, but then the boy started to kick and flail and John turned him sideways to contain him more. “I _said_ , that’s enough!”

Fif stopped kicking and started crying, from frustration and fear and being in a new place John supposed, and he sat down in a chair with the boy cradled on his lap. “Shh, shh, you’re alright,” he soothed, stroking his dark curls and rubbing his back. “You’re going to be okay, no one’s going to hurt you, Sh—“ G-d, he almost called him ‘Sherlock,’ barely managing to disguise it as a shush. Not that he’d ever had occasion to comfort Sherlock this way, though sometimes John wished it were allowed, when a particularly black mood struck him—He kissed the boy’s temple as he hugged him. “Come on, you’re alright.” He glanced up to see Sherlock and Mycroft watching him with only mild interest as they sipped their tea. Anthea was filing her nails. John resisted rolling his eyes, it was clearly wasted on them.

“I want Eggie!” Fif hiccupped, when he could get some words out. “Eggie! Where’s Eggie!”

“What?” John asked in confusion, glancing at Mycroft questioningly.

“Egggggieeeeeeee!”

“Hmm, he _was_ carrying some lumpy, stuffed sort of thing,” Mycroft remembered vaguely. “We had to burn it.” John’s eyes widened in horror. “Well, it was filthy.”

This was, of course, exactly the wrong thing to say and Fif burst into howls of despair. Even more shocking, however, was Sherlock slamming his teacup down on Mycroft’s desk and moving closer to the boy. “You were always vicious,” he told his brother nastily, kneeling down by John’s chair with an expression of intense concentration on the boy.

“Oh, I thought you’d gotten over that,” Mycroft scoffed, unsympathetic. “Really, it was years ago. Bearrington was hardly—“

“ _Mister_ Bearrington,” Sherlock hissed at him, and Mycroft rolled his eyes. John glanced between the two of them dubiously, not needing anyone else to dissolve into tears at this point. Though he appreciated that Sherlock seemed more interested in the boy. “What should I do?” he asked John, a rare occurrence.

“Give me your jacket,” John told him, and he wrapped the fabric tightly around the boy, holding the sleeves behind his back.

“Are you making a straitjacket?” Sherlock guessed. He seemed to find this sensible.

“I’m swaddling him,” John tried to explain, as the boy lapsed into softer sobs.

“He’s a clone of Sherlock, _not_ Baby Jesus,” Mycroft just had to say, and Sherlock opened his mouth to launch a no-doubt irreverent reply.

“Some young children like being wrapped tightly in things,” John cut in. “It calms them down.”

“Children like being tied up?” Sherlock interpreted, deeply skeptical.

Mycroft found the idea darkly amusing. “Oh, if only you’d had that excuse to give Mummy,” he said to Sherlock sarcastically.

“John knows what he’s talking about,” Sherlock claimed, another rare occurrence, which John was not really in a position to appreciate right now. He stood and looked down on the quieting boy with satisfaction, as though he’d contributed a substantial amount. “Besides, you didn’t really get upset until I lit the fire. Now, continue explaining about the dust you found on the delivery van.”

They left John with Fif, intent on exchanging deductions about the laboratory personnel and avoiding any more personal topics. Which was alright with John, he’d heard far more than he wanted to about the Holmes boys’ toxic childhood. Anthea had managed to squeak away too, he saw. Fif had gone still in his arms and John looked down to see big, wet blue eyes staring back up at him from a mess of dark hair and fabric.

“You okay?” he asked him quietly.

“Eggie’s really gone?” he replied tremulously.

“I’m afraid so,” John admitted, quickly adding, “Why don’t you tell me about him? What did he look like?”

“He was sort of egg-shaped,” Fif described sadly, “and very soft. I liked him better than all the other plushies, because I had him since I was a baby.”

John sat the boy up a bit more. “Who told you that?”

“I remember.”

“You don’t remember being a baby,” John contradicted carefully.

“I do,” Fif stated. “Not every little thing. But I remember sitting in my cot, and playing with Eggie, and wishing someone would come to get me down, because it was boring in there.”

“Were there people around then?”

Fif shrugged without concern. He squirmed a little and John let go of the sleeves so he could work his arms free, scrubbing his face on the silky fabric of the jacket. “This is very soft,” he remarked leadingly.

“You can probably have it now,” John predicted dryly, imagining that Sherlock would consider it biohazard waste.

“Thank you,” Fif told him politely. “May I have another biscuit, please?”

“Well, let’s go see what’s there,” John hedged. The tea trolley had not been overloaded with sweets, and Mycroft did like to filch them. He set the boy on his feet and watched him pad over to the trolley, jacket dragging the floor around him. “Careful, don’t—“ he began, right before Fif tripped and fell face-first onto the floor.

They all held their breath for a moment, then the boy popped back up and continued on his way as though nothing had happened. Mycroft and Sherlock went back to their conversation and John hurried after Fif with a sigh.

The only food left was a bland cracker, which John could see did not meet with the boy’s approval. He took it anyway, ungraciously, and plopped down on the floor to eat it. “What does Lowly Worm say?” John prompted, sitting down beside him less dexterously.

“Thank you,” Fif muttered sullenly. He might not be screaming at the moment, but John was under no illusion that he was really calm—none of his problems had been resolved and in fact, his new knowledge about Eggie’s destruction told him that his situation was even worse than he’d thought.

“Can I ask you a question?” John began politely, not wanting to seem like an interrogator.

“You just did,” Fif shot back smartly, and John supposed he should have expected that.

“Another one, then.” The boy shrugged. “When you were by yourself, did you ever get hurt?” John asked. “Fall and skin your knee, maybe? Did anyone come to help you?”

Fif glared at him. “I _told you_ , there was no one there,” he responded brattily.

John found his patience starting to wear a bit thin. How was he going to survive this boy _and_ Sherlock? “Fif, don’t be rude,” he admonished sternly. “Then what happened, if you fell and skinned your knee?”

“Well, usually nothing,” Fif tried to remember, and John patted his back to encourage his effort. “It hurt for a bit, then I just went on. But if it hurt a lot,” he added thoughtfully, “like when I climbed up the bookcases and fell off”—obviously he hadn’t learned from that misadventure—“I went to sleep, and when I woke up I was fine.”

“No bandages or a cast on your arm or anything?”

He shook his head. “But sometimes I had weird dreams, with people in them,” he went on, frowning. “Like they were really there, but not.”

John nodded slowly. “I’ll be right back,” he told the boy, standing stiffly. Crawling around the floor was not really what he should be doing. He joined Mycroft and Sherlock, not caring if he interrupted them. “Do you have any medical records for Fif?” he asked. “I think they drugged him sometimes, so they could give him medical attention without him really seeing them.”

“What few records we recovered from the database purge are encrypted,” Mycroft told him, disappointingly. “We’re still trying to crack them.”

“What did you call him?” Sherlock questioned.

John supposed he shouldn’t be surprised Sherlock hadn’t bothered to learn the boy’s name yet. “Fif.”

Uncomprehending Sherlock looked to Mycroft. “Fif,” his brother repeated unhelpfully. “It’s short for Fifteen, that was his ID number apparently.”

“G-d,” John sighed, feeling awful for the boy yet again.

Gratifyingly, Sherlock’s eyes also widened in horror. “ _Fifteen_?” he repeated. “Does that mean there’s fourteen others somewhere?” John shook his head, faulting only himself for expecting Sherlock to care about the right thing.

“We only found the one,” Mycroft assured him, shuddering slightly at the idea himself. An army of little Sherlock clones might indeed be zombie apocalypse-level bad. “Just the one set of rooms furnished and occupied. Of course I’ll send you the results of our own examinations, Doctor,” he added, and John nodded gratefully. “Fif seems very resilient, at least.”

“Fif,” Sherlock repeated with some disdain. “Rather ridiculous name, isn’t it?”

“Sherlock,” John warned sharply. Speaking of ridiculous names.

He could not have hoped the boy would fail to hear this. “It’s not a ridiculous name!” he countered angrily, and Sherlock turned around to glare at his little counterpart.

“Fif, Sherlock didn’t mean—“ John tried to intervene.

“It’s not a name at all,” Sherlock pointed out to the boy coolly. “It’s just a number.”

“It’s not a number, it’s my name!” Fif sputtered, his little face turning red.

“John, he’s being irrational again,” Sherlock announced dismissively. “And I suspect he’s about to make a noise.”

“Fif, calm down, it’s alright,” John tried, approaching slowly. The child’s whole body was shaking with pent-up fury.

“Here we go again,” sighed Mycroft.

“ _You have a dead bat!_ ” Fif screeched.

“What?” John asked, wondering if that was supposed to be some kind of curse.

Sherlock, however, looked at the boy with astonishment. “How did you know that?” he demanded.

“Wait, we _do_ have a dead bat?” John questioned, utterly confused. And slightly alarmed.

“You got it to come down the chimney with dried dates, and then you poisoned it!” Fif shouted.

“What the bloody h—l,” John declared, seriously wondering if the boy was possessed. “Wait, how did you know we had a chimney?”

“Lucky guess,” Sherlock challenged.

This did not help the situation. “It’s not a guess!” Fif screamed. “Under your fingernails!” Then he burst into uncontrollable sobs and flung himself to the floor, kicking and pounding his fists.

“Oh, s—t,” John sighed hopelessly. “What did you have to antagonize him for? He’s a little kid, you git!”

Sherlock, however, was studying his fingernails. “G-d, that’s _brilliant_ ,” he proclaimed, not that it did Fif any good at this point. He showed his hand to Mycroft.

“How would he know that?” Mycroft asked skeptically.

“Well, all he would need is some reference books and a simple chemistry set,” Sherlock claimed.

“Hey!” John snapped at them. “Could you help me out a little here?!” He was trying to come at the boy from a non-dangerous angle and had not so far succeeded.

“There’s nothing you can do, Doctor,” Mycroft told him. “He’ll cry until he throws up, cry some more, and then if we’re lucky, pass out. Trust me, I spent a lot of my childhood listening to this bloody racket.”

“You’re such an insensitive b-----d,” Sherlock told his brother, without a trace of irony. He leaned back against the desk and examined his fingernails again.

John wanted to slap both of them. “Your parents let you cry until you threw up and passed out? _Repeatedly_?” And thought this was normal, apparently.

Sherlock was not pleased to be reminded of this, but he could hardly deny it with Mycroft there, and he just shrugged. Well, John wasn’t going to let this cycle repeat itself, because that was definitely _not_ normal. “Our parents quickly found out that he—“ Mycroft began. “—bites,” he added belatedly, after the boy had sunk his teeth into John’s arm when he tried to restrain him.

“Ow!” John exclaimed. “F-----g—just let go, it’s alright—“ He knew better than to yank his arm away.

“Hey!” Sherlock snapped, approaching with eyes blazing, and the boy let go and scrambled away with wide eyes.

John grabbed Sherlock’s arm to stop him from pursuing as Fif dove under a chair. “Stop. Stop,” he told him, trying to press down on his wound at the same time. “You’re scaring him.”

“He bloody _should_ be scared!” Sherlock snarled.

“Stop. Sit down,” John insisted, tugging Sherlock to the floor. “Hey, look at me. Sherlock.”

Finally Sherlock took his eyes off the child and turned them onto John, the intensity of his gaze hitting the other man full blast. John didn’t flinch, though; in fact he smiled a little. “Are you alright?” Sherlock ground out.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” John promised, although the throbbing in his arm said otherwise. “Just calm down. It’s alright.” He found himself using the same tone he’d used on Fif and really hoped Sherlock didn’t notice. Or that John had kept his hand on his arm.

“It’s actually _not_ alright,” Sherlock corrected firmly, of the whole situation. “It’s really the _opposite_ of alright.” He seemed to be calming down a bit, though, turning his attention to John’s injury.

“Doctor,” Mycroft summoned, and John saw that Anthea had reappeared with a first aid kit and was snapping on a pair of latex gloves like something out of a porn film. Or a horror one.

Sherlock helped him stand up. “You go over there and keep an eye on him,” John directed, indicating the boy. “Just sit there, and remember that he’s scared.” Sherlock gritted his teeth as he contemplated the idea, but he saw that John was serious about it and decided to obey, settling down in front of the chair far enough away that he could still see Fif. He quickly slipped into his ‘thinking’ pose, cross-legged with his chin resting on his fingertips.

Anthea swabbed John’s injury with remarkable efficiency. John decided it did _not_ need stitches—he didn’t want to see Sherlock’s reaction to _that_ —and he tried to take the disinfectant like a man. Mycroft was more interested in watching Sherlock watch the boy, his expression unreadable to John. Anthea applied a large bandage to John’s arm and he quickly rolled his sleeve down over it, glad his dark jumper hid the blood well. “Thank you,” he told her. “You have much experience with first aid?”

“More than with babysitting,” she responded coolly.

“He deduced that all of her houseplants were dead,” Mycroft offered quietly. “Just from—what, a smudge on your coat?” This sort of thing no longer impressed Anthea. “He’s a very intelligent boy.”

His tone was unusually melancholy. “But you think something else is wrong with him,” John surmised, slightly chilled by the idea.

Mycroft shrugged noncommittally. “Excessive intelligence in the wrong environment… and you get a Moriarty.”

John couldn’t help snorting slightly. “He’s five,” he repeated. “He’s… sweet. Just a little high-strung. Anyone would be, with that kind of upbringing.”

“You see what you like,” Mycroft warned. “I see what I fear.”

Well obviously, whoever had made and raised the boy was up to no good. And it surely wasn’t a coincidence that Sherlock had been targeted for this project. But John was not going to condemn a child who was as much a victim of this plot as anyone else. He pushed himself away from the desk and walked over to Sherlock quietly, sitting down beside him on the floor with an ungainly grunt.

“How’s your leg?” Sherlock asked him.

“Oh, it’s fine.”

“You shouldn’t be on the floor.”

“I’m not that old _yet_ , Junior.”

Sherlock snorted. “ _That’s_ Junior,” he noted, nodding at the boy who watched them with darting eyes.

“I suppose so. Fif, can you come out now?” John suggested, trying to sound casual. “It’s alright, no one’s mad at you. Sherlock’s not mad at you, are you, Sherlock?”

“No,” Sherlock claimed, in a manner that was highly unconvincing to the adults but might work on a child.

“I’m not mad at you either,” John assured him. “Can you come out now and sit with me? I would like you to sit with me.” He was not sure how long this was going to take, if the boy had Sherlock’s stubbornness.

“Do you have a chemistry set, Fif?” Sherlock asked him curiously. “Is that how you knew about the ashes and the sulfuric acid?”

“Is there really a dead bat at home?” John hissed at him.

“It’s for a case,” Sherlock claimed. “But I need to let it embalm further.”

“Oh G-d.”

“Just stay away from the breadbox and it will be fine.”

Fif scooted a little closer to the edge of his hiding place. “Do you really have a dead bat in your breadbox? That’s funny.” He smiled tentatively.

“Well, John won’t let me keep it in the refrigerator,” Sherlock told him. “He’s a bit particular about that sort of thing.” The boy’s grin widened, and a corner of Sherlock’s mouth quirked up in response, almost unconsciously. Bonding over a dead bat. Somehow John was not surprised.

John risked reaching his hand out, slowly, palm up. Fif jerked back and John let it hang there. “I would really like it if you came out here and sat with me, Fif,” he said again. There was a long pause, then the boy crawled out, still swathed in Sherlock’s jacket. He took John’s hand and John maneuvered him onto his lap. “There now, that’s very nice,” John praised.

Fif was looking at his arm. “Are you hurt very badly?” he asked regretfully.

“No, it’s alright,” John assured him. “It _did_ hurt, though,” he added. “You mustn’t bite people. That’s a rule.”

“I never had that rule before,” Fif pointed out. There hadn’t been anyone to bite.

“Well, remember it from now on,” John advised. “You mustn’t hurt people.”

“Unless they’re trying to hurt _you_ ,” Sherlock added quickly. “And that’s not ever going to be John, so you mustn’t hurt John. Do you understand?” Fif nodded solemnly. John was vaguely flattered but decided now was not a good time to discuss it further. Sherlock’s eyes darted over the boy. “You’re hurt,” he observed.

Flecks of blood showed through the knee of Fif’s trousers. “Oh, you’ve cut your knee,” John added sympathetically. “Don’t worry, we can take care of that.”

With remarkable deftness Sherlock rolled the boy’s trouser leg up over his knee, revealing the shallow scratches he must have gotten diving under the chair. “It doesn’t hurt,” Fif claimed, gazing at it with some interest. “It will stop bleeding and get all scabby soon, and then go away.”

“Well, I think we should put a bandage on it,” John suggested, glancing over at Anthea.

“Yes, I agree,” Sherlock concurred seriously. Anthea walked the first aid kit over to him and then left quickly, having no intention of attending the boy herself. “There are more germs here than where you used to live. Do you know what a _germ_ is?”

Fif nodded. “Yes, it’s a tiny bug that you can’t see, but it can make you sick.”

“That’s very good,” John told him, since Sherlock looked like he was going to lecture the boy on the topic further. “That’s a very functional definition of a germ.” He aimed that more at Sherlock.

“Yes, well, you must listen to John about that,” Sherlock conceded, generously, “because he’s a doctor.”

“Oh, you’re a doctor?” Fif seemed impressed by this. “You must be very clever.”

“In this crowd? Not really,” John couldn’t help muttering. “But thank you. Do you want me to--?” he asked Sherlock, indicating the boy’s injury.

“No, I’ll do it.” He poured some disinfectant on a cotton pad.

“This might sting a bit,” John warned quickly, and Sherlock froze, waiting for his signal to continue. He shifted the boy slightly on his lap so that he could lean over Fif and hold his ankles lightly, should his well-developed reflex to kick be triggered. Sherlock’s expression said he hadn’t thought of that. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” Sherlock assured him.

“I didn’t mean _you_.”

“Oh.”

“I’m ready,” Fif announced, and Sherlock began to swab his scraped knee with the disinfectant.

The boy howled and John grabbed his legs. “Owww! It hurts!” Tears leaked from his eyes.

“It’s alright, hush—“

“That feeling means the germs are being killed,” Sherlock informed him matter-of-factly.

The boy seemed to find this appealing. “Really?”

“Yes, there’s hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of them perishing as we speak,” Sherlock went on. “They’re shriveling instantly, like raisins, and sometimes all the inside parts come squishing out of them, like—have you ever stomped on a tube of toothpaste?—somewhat similar—“

“Okay, thank you, Sherlock,” John interrupted, trying to sound upbeat.

“I’m just attempting to be accurate,” Sherlock informed him.

“I like stomping on things,” Fif shared as Sherlock put the bandage over his knee. “Especially when they squish.”

“I like microwaving things until they explode,” Sherlock nodded. Fif’s eyes widened with delight.

“You know what I like?” John added. “I like things to be clean. And not exploded. Or stomped on.”

Sherlock and Fif gave him identical looks. “That’s not much fun,” Fif judged.

“And useless for scientific purposes,” Sherlock noted.

“Lord,” John sighed.

Sherlock rolled the boy’s trouser leg back down and Fif poked at the bandage under the fabric. “Leave it alone,” John warned.

“It itches.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

There was a long moment of silence. Sherlock stared at the boy as though trying to envision every twist of his familiar DNA. Fif squirmed on John’s lap, examining the buttons on Sherlock’s jacket that he still wore. John watched them both, cataloging the similarities and differences in facial structure, expression, movement. Fif was not as precise or still, of course, but he was quick and determined, and his focus intense when he became curious about something.

“How did you know about the dried dates?” Sherlock asked suddenly, probingly, and Fif dug into the pocket of Sherlock’s jacket and pulled out a half-eaten brown, wrinkled lump.

“Ugh, that’s disgusting,” John commented to Sherlock.

“Hmm, that’s where it went,” he replied, taking it.

“The teeth marks on it are from a bat,” Fif stated confidently.

“How do you know that?” John asked skeptically.

“I read about bats in my encyclopedia,” Fif told him, pronouncing the long word carefully. “They have funny teeth, like this.” He used his fingers to mimic bat teeth in his own mouth.

“Brilliant synthesis of information,” Sherlock judged seriously, and Fif gave him a dazzling grin, with dimples, that seemed to catch him off-guard. “Well we have to get going,” he announced abruptly, rising fluidly to his feet. He chucked the dried date carelessly onto the nearby chair.

“Going? Where?” John asked. He nudged the boy up then stood himself, stiffly, slightly shocked when Sherlock grabbed his arm—briefly—to assist him.

“Home, of course.” Sherlock’s nose wrinkled as he saw Fif randomly lick the sleeve of his jacket. “I need to research a few things. And _think_ , I need to think!” He was already starting to pace a bit.

“Okay,” John agreed. “And what about—“ He gestured silently to the boy, who was investigating something on the underside of the chair.

“He can keep the jacket,” Sherlock replied dismissively.

John summoned patience. “What about _him_?”

Clearly Sherlock didn’t see where he was going with this. “Obviously I’m going to be investigating further,” he said. “Which is why I need to go home. Or perhaps we should stop at the morgue first—“ He paused at the expression on John’s face, trying to interpret it. “Did you want to go somewhere else?” he asked, painfully.

“Where is _he_ going to go?” John posed, indicating Fif and trying not to gain his attention.

This was not information that Sherlock had previously considered important, but obviously John wanted an answer. “Back with Anthea?” he guessed.

“No,” she replied firmly, eyes glued to her phone.

John realized he was going to have to risk spelling it out, no matter the tantrum it might cause. And not in the five-year-old. “I think he should come home with us,” he finally said.

Sherlock froze, like he was suddenly in the presence of a feral animal. “Our home?”

“Yes.”

“With us?”

“Yes.”

“Baker Street?” Sherlock checked.

John crossed his arms over his chest, which Sherlock knew meant business. Still, he opened his mouth to rattle off the list of reasons why that idea was preposterous.

“Oh, you can’t take him,” Mycroft informed them idly. “No, we’re keeping him in a special secure area, with twenty-four-hour monitoring and a controlled environment.”

“In a laboratory, you mean,” John translated angrily.

“That’s what he’s used to,” Mycroft shrugged. “He’ll have to be carefully observed and tested for any abnormalities—“

“You can’t be serious!” John interrupted. Fif looked up at him in alarm and John tried to smile at him, not wanting to face another screaming fit. Instead he stomped closer to Mycroft and lowered his voice. “He needs to be in a normal environment with people who care about him, not scientists who are trying to study him! He’s had enough of that.” Surely even Mycroft wasn’t _that_ heartless.

But it looked like he was. “Sorry, Doctor. He’s an anomaly, and he must be quantified. Besides,” he added dryly, “I’m afraid 221B Baker Street does not exactly qualify as a normal environment. Put him away now, Anthea.” Dismissively Mycroft glanced at the papers on his desk.

John very much wanted to curse at him. But he knew from experience that didn’t do any good. What he _really_ wanted was to say something brilliant and logical that would change the minds of both of the Holmeses, ignite some sort of humanity under their cold exteriors, but he knew he wasn’t that clever, even when he could think clearly, which was not now. He looked over at Fif and saw that he’d climbed up in the chair and was balancing on it, testing the bounce of the seat while Sherlock stared at him curiously.

“He’s your own flesh and blood,” John tried futilely.

“Yes,” Mycroft agreed, as if he hadn’t thought about it that way before. “Don’t think I haven’t considered locking the other one up as well,” he added, gazing at his paperwork.

Now John thought about hitting him. John also thought about Anthea slamming him to the floor before he could even raise his arm. Then he thought about two pairs of blue eyes who deserved better, and he almost hit him anyway.

“We’ll take him home,” Sherlock declared suddenly. “Come here,” he told Fif, picking him up. “John?”

The other man was frozen in shock for a moment at the rapid change, then decided not to chance Sherlock reversing himself and hurried over. “Sherlock, you can’t take him,” Mycroft repeated, sounding utterly confident that the three of them would never get out of the building together. “He’s government property and needs to be monitored.”

“He is not going to be experimented on and studied and tested,” Sherlock snapped, and Fif became very still in his arms. “As much as I’m sure you would enjoy that. He is not a laboratory rat.” He started to walk towards the outer doors.

“Well, technically…” Mycroft responded with dark sarcasm.

Something in his tone made Sherlock stop and John stopped as well, confused. “G-------t, Mycroft!” Sherlock swore suddenly, turning around.

“You’ll be wanting some clothes for him, I expect,” Mycroft said, a touch smugly. Anthea was now holding a bright red backpack, which she walked over to them.

“Sorry, what just—“ John asked, mystified.

“That’s a very sophisticated technique we in the service call ‘reverse psychology,’” Mycroft explained, now _openly_ smug.

“That’s i-golok-iss,” Fif said, nonsensically.

“I-golok-isp,” Sherlock corrected, equally nonsensical. “Psychology starts with a _pee_.”

“Oh, I forgot,” Fif admitted with disappointment.

John got it suddenly and laughed, partly a release of tension. Anthea gave him a disdainful look as she handed him the red backpack. “So you _weren’t_ going to keep him in a laboratory?” he checked with Mycroft.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Let’s get out of here,” John said to Sherlock quickly.

“Agreed.” They pushed through the doors into the outer office and made for the exit.

“Where are we going?” Fif wanted to know, looking around at the hallways avidly. “Why are there people on the ceiling? I’m not allowed to paint on the ceiling.”

“You’re going to go home with us, Fif,” John tried to explain to him. “Is that alright?”

“Do you live in a burrow under the ground?” he inquired. “Why is that man carrying a gun? Why does that lady smell funny?”

John shushed him. “Perfectly legitimate questions,” Sherlock countered, as the perfumed woman glared at them.

“We’ll discuss them _at home_ ,” John deferred. “Which is not an underground burrow, by the way.”

“Oh. Is it a treehouse? Or at least on stilts?” Fif wanted to know.

“No, it’s a second-floor walk-up above a sandwich shop,” Sherlock finally described.

“I like sandwiches,” Fif decided.

“And this,” Sherlock added, stopping at the building’s entrance, “is London.”

For a moment they all just stared out over the streets, the buildings and monuments rising up around them, the cars rushing by honking, bicycles, pedestrians. John tried to imagine what it would be like to see the city for the first time, when you had only known the inside of a few rooms your whole life.

Then he _did_ imagine it, and quickly reached up to take the boy from Sherlock.

“What--?” Sherlock began.

“There’s so many people and it’s so loud!” Fif sobbed at the same time, and John pulled the jacket over his head to muffle the city for him.

“Oh.”

“Is that our car?” John prompted Sherlock, trying to soothe Fif.

“Right, it’s coming.”

Fortunately the cars Mycroft provided were dead silent inside and Fif calmed down somewhat.

“You’re very moist,” Sherlock observed. “Haven’t you run out of bodily fluids yet? How much capacity could you possibly have?”

Fif did not take offense at this so John didn’t chide Sherlock. “Will there be food soon?” the boy asked instead. “Usually there’s food at four o’clock, unless I yell quite loudly and get it sooner.”

“No yelling,” John reminded him swiftly.

“Unless it’s important,” Sherlock added.

“Food is important,” Fif pointed out.

“Let’s just wait until we get home,” John sighed.

**Author's Note:**

> His name will change in the next story.


End file.
